Germination of Seeds Grown on Medium from Olive Mill Liquid Waste, Olive Mill Pomace, and Stone Sludge Waste

Germination of Barley and Tomato seeds was investigated on a medium formulated from industrial waste by-product. Solid Olive Mill Pomace (SOM) was mixed with Stone Sludge waste (SSW) and untreated Liquid Olive Mill Liquid waste (OML), (aka: olive mill waste water =OMLW) in different mixing ratios. The seeds were sown in pots containing different mixture of the three components of waste by-product. Germination resulted in certain pots and inhibitions occurred in other pots. It appears that as the percentage of stone sludge was increased in the mixed formulation, a better growth in the pots was observed. This is probably due to the fact that the OML is acidic in nature, and the SSW is basic in nature. The purpose of experiment was to develop sustainable method of new agriculture practices and to reduce the negative impact of serious pollutants produced from olive mill industry and stone factories in Palestine. to protect  the biophysical environment and quality capacity building in Palestine Three polluting materials including olive mill waste water (OMWW), lime stone sludge and solid waste of olive mill factories (pomace or Jeft) were mixed in specific ratio to produce artificial soil. Keywords: olive mill waste, stone sludge, germination, agriculture, pomace, recyclin

Green cement based material optimization for additive manufacturing in construction

The rapid growth of 3D printing technology has led to the development of large-scale 3D printers that can print concrete. The process of 3D printing in concrete does not use formwork and thus gives increased flexibility to designers, saves the cost of labour and materials and reduces waste. These printers have been used to construct structural elements and full-scale buildings which have been the focus of a new age of 3D printers in the construction industry. The materials are an important part of the printing process, aiming to obtain a particular mix satisfying all the requirements of cementitious material. There is interest to broaden the focus on waste from construction industries and involving these wastes in 3D printing for sustainable construction, blending technology with the construction process. In this work, stone sludge was used as raw material in the mortar, having the objective to do 3D printing in a cost-effective and affordable way. The mortar was printed using a robotic arm with an extrusion printing process. Six mortars with different proportions of stone sludge and admixtures were tested in a systematic way to determine the printable properties of mortar. The bending and compressive strength of printed or casted samples were measured and compared

Ornamental stone sludge recovery as thermo-eco mortar for plaster.

Ornamental stone sludge deriving from cutting processes is a topical issue at National and International level. The primary objective of the European Directive 2006/21/EC is to minimize the production of waste, generated by mining industry and encourage its recovery by means of recycling, reuse or recovery operations. The identification of best practices for the recovery of raw materials is one of the goal for circular economy concept. The main problems of ornamental stone sludge are related to physical and chemical characteristics: heavy metals concentration, due to cutting tools wear, very fine particle size distribution, and huge volume in limited areas. The research aims to exploit the physical and chemical characteristics of the sludge for their proper recovery, thus minimizing waste and bringing economic and environmental benefits to the companies that produce this waste. From literature few studies were carried out on reuse of sawing sludge as a plaster. Husam D. Al- Hamaiedeh and Waleed H. Khushefati, in 2013, have studied the reuse of sludge deriving from the cutting of granites as an additive for mortars and concrete cement. Pierucci A. et al, in 2007, investigated the reuse of sludge deriving from the processing of marble in mortars and plasters for the restoration of buildings. In this context the sludge deriving from the cutting of Piedmont silicate rocks is to be reused in substitution of the sands and fine particle normally used to produce plasters. For this purpose the Luserna stone sludge processed with diamond blade and diamond wire, with a low concentration of metals, and Luserna stone sand deriving from flaming process, was chosen. What we want to achieve is a lightened thermal eco-plaster. The first step concern the sludge characterization: particle size distribution, specific gravity, chemical analysis, leaching test, SEM and XPRD analysis and magnetic separation to identify the metals concentration. The second step foresees the development of the eco-mortar for plaster mix design and its characterization by means of different tests carried out according to UNI EN 988-1 (Technical specifications for mortar for masonry work. Part 1: Mortars for internal and external plasters). The performed test are as follow: bulk density of fresh mortar, spreading test, dry bulk density, flexural and compressive strength before and after freeze and thaw cycle, definition of compressive strength class and category, adhesive strength (pull out),thermal conductivity at 15 and 68 days of maturation and in dry condition, resistance to salts crystallization cycle, water absorption before and after freeze and thaw cycle and salt crystallization cycle, chemical analysis and leaching test and SEM analysis on final product. Sawing sludge deriving from the processing of Luserna stone has improved the rheological, thermal and physical performance of the environmentally friendly plaster, conferring a light macroporous cellular structure by means adding organic foam, thus facilitating its installation even for high thicknesses

Mechanical properties and antimicrobial activity of pumice stone/sludge filled thermosetting composites

The exploitation of natural quarries generates a high amount of waste as a result of the extraction, screening and segmentation processes. These usually inert wastes are not typically reused and end up in landfills. There is an urgent need for sustainable solutions aiming at the valorisation of these mineral wastes through the development of innovative products with greater added value and active functionalities. In this work, the applicability of different mineral wastes was tested on the development of advanced active ecocomposites. Several formulations/ conditions, using green epoxy and polyester matrixes, were assessed in order to determine the reasonable production parameters. Additionally, two different antibacterial agents were added and the efficacy was tested. The overall mechanical performance of the ecocomposite was evaluated during every stage of development. The combination of dried sludge and green epoxy resin (SE_70), containing 70% of mineral waste, revealed to be most promising composition with interesting mechanical properties (tensile strength 91.63 ± 3.31 (MPa); strain (%) 0.69 ± 0.05; and Young’s modulus (GPa) 13.65 ± 0.64). The functionalization of these samples was successful and the antibacterial activity was confirmed. However, the active agent affected the short-term mechanical properties. Nevertheless, the QUV® accelerated weathering test confirmed that the main long-term properties were unaffected. Thus, it is concluded that mineral waste from quarry activities can be use in the development of new sustainable added value advanced products.This work was supported by Operational Programme “Regional Azores 2014–2020”, through project Basalt Waste Composite (ACORES01-0247-FEDER-000013), Portugal

Technology and Management for Sustainable Buildings and Infrastructures

A total of 30 articles have been published in this special issue, and it consists of 27 research papers, 2 technical notes, and 1 review paper. A total of 104 authors from 9 countries including Korea, Spain, Taiwan, USA, Finland, China, Slovenia, the Netherlands, and Germany participated in writing and submitting very excellent papers that were finally published after the review process had been conducted according to very strict standards. Among the published papers, 13 papers directly addressed words such as sustainable, life cycle assessment (LCA) and CO2, and 17 papers indirectly dealt with energy and CO2 reduction effects. Among the published papers, there are 6 papers dealing with construction technology, but a majority, 24 papers deal with management techniques. The authors of the published papers used various analysis techniques to obtain the suggested solutions for each topic. Listed by key techniques, various techniques such as Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), the Taguchi method, machine learning including Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs), Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), regression analysis, Strength–Weakness–Opportunity–Threat (SWOT), system dynamics, simulation and modeling, Building Information Model (BIM) with schedule, and graph and data analysis after experiments and observations are identified

Topics in Cement and Concrete Research

In recent decades, the construction sector has faced many changes. One of these changes is the shift in the role of national government from one-sided practices in which the government was solely responsible for strategic and long-term spatial planning to a multi-actor and multi-level arena. One outcome was a rearrangement of the balance between public and private responsibilities. This has led to new procurement routes and contracts as Private Finance Initiative (PFI) and Public Private Partnerships (PPP), as well as to a more performance-oriented client (both public and private). At the same time, construction firms changed their strategic focus from cost efficiency to adding value for money for the client, resulting in new contract forms such as Design & Construct (D&C), Building, Operate & Transfer (BOT) and variants there from. So far, governments of most European countries have their own restrictive specifications for the use of building materials

Attributes of mobile technology adoption acceptance from users perspective

The most significant challenge associated with the operationalization of user-based technology emerged as technology acceptance among the public. This study aims to investigate the challenges in mobile technology adoption in the Abu Dhabi Emirate by identifying 52 factors that motivate users to adopt mobile technology across a broad spectrum. These factors were clustered into six categories namely Perceived Ease of Use (PEOU) User Experience (UE) Attitude (ATT), Customer Satisfaction Excellence (CSE) Perceived Usefulness (PU) and Intention to Use (INU). The data was collected through 396 questionnaires to gauge the perception of the public. The data was analysed statistically and found that all of the categories have Cronbach Alpha values greater than 0.7 which indicate that the data was reliable and consistent. The data was also assessed for its normality and found that the skewness and kurtosis values were in the range of normal distribution. For ranking analysis, it was found that the three most common categories considered by respondents when using any technology is Perceived Ease of Use. User experience is the second most important driving respondents' use of technology. This is followed by the user's attitude, which is what drives the adoption of any technology. This findings help the new technology providers to understand the acceptance patterns of the users

Natural stone sludge as secondary raw materials: towards a new sustainable recovery process

L'abstract è presente nell'allegato / the abstract is in the attachmen